Wasteful spending- I agree 100%. Their can and should be better efficiency in government spending.
About people who can work- what about the situations where people are simply not hired. I know people who worked and work hard when they can and have the opportunity but simply for example after college their is not enough opportunity available even for people who have high grades.
Also one of the biggest waste and spending is in the wars. Their is simply wayyy to much $ being spent and some companies making a lot of money.
I am against socialism/communism but the Torah perspective (at least for Am Yisrael) is to help each other out when possible. And the highest form of Tzeddakah is to help someone make a living.
The very rich simply do not need all that $ and please please don't tell me they deserve it. Nobody deserves making over a million dollars a year (CEO's for example) while their are other people making lets say $40,000. Nobody's work can be that much greater (25 Times in this case). And it often happens that the people at the top simply give to each other and then we see the $ not trickle down as much to the "lower classes" and often the companies going bankrupt.
Or the salaries of athletes. Sure one can claim the "free market" but never-the-less it is absurd that a nurse saving a persons life is treated less then someone shooting a basket into a hope. People should be able to make $ but their should be limits and less gap between the extremely rich and poorer people. Let's be honest having wayy to much $ will not make one a better or happier person. While not having enough $ will cause one big problems.
Also I am fully aware of the dangers as well- where the very rich will simply leave the country and take their assets along with them thus not pay taxes to the country. BUT the question is morally what is correct? I think their is definitely a balance that the Torah provides and the job is to MORALLY teach people to be kind and sharing towards others and to care about the poor and destitute. Sorry but the American conservative attitudes I hear being resonated here is not what I see the Torah and G-D proposing. Even with charity (or TZEDAKAH which really means and comes from "JUSTICE") as the Torah says, the Hachamim even went in to some people's property (those who did not give properly or enough) and confiscated things and gave them to the poor. - By the way this is brought down in Rav Kahane's Sefer "Or Harayon"- "The Jewish Idea"
Topic: How we right-wing Jews would handle the "fiscal cliff" (new JTF video) (Read 1262 times)